


The Space Between Us

by TAG_Fic_Anon



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Mutually Unrequited, and the ghost of Lucy between them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 21:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17905988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TAG_Fic_Anon/pseuds/TAG_Fic_Anon
Summary: Jeff wrestles with complicated feelings about both the women in his life. Penny struggles with the impossible comparison to Lucy.





	The Space Between Us

Jeff’s not sure what’s keeping him awake. He ate a delicious dinner, drank a liberal amount of fine wine, spent the night making love to a beautiful woman. By rights he should be snoring happily, smug in the knowledge that thousands of men would kill to be in his place right now, staring at the bare back of the woman sleeping beside him. 

 

He has the urge to reach out, to wake her, but he resists. There’s a space between them larger than the four inches of mattress that separate their bodies and he doesn’t know how she will react to his feelings right now. 

 

He rules out waking her. It won’t satisfy the sense of loneliness he’s feeling. He’s actually pretty sure that he’ll feel even more lonely. There’s no hope for resolving his emotional isolation so he settles for fixing his physical isolation, gently shifting closer to curl up against her back and bury his nose in her hair. 

 

It’s comforting and familiar to have a woman in his arms. To be surrounded by the scent of perfume and expensive shampoo. To run his hands over soft skin. Except that this is unfamiliar softness. Clear in his mind is the image of a stomach peppered with stretchmarks and cupped by a fine c-section scar. What his hand comes to rest on here is smooth and unblemished skin. Where he wants a soft paunch instead he finds firm abs. 

 

He knows it’s wrong to want another woman when you have one in your bed but Jeff’s never been able to shake the feeling that he’s being unfaithful in the several months that this affair has been carrying on. He may have been widowed for nearly a decade now, yet the fact remains; his heart belongs to Lucy, even when it’s Lady Penelope asleep in his arms.

 

Of course Penny isn’t stupid. He knows she knows there’s a conflict raging within him. He often wonders how long she’ll put up with sharing him with a ghost. Because even while each encounter feels semi-adulterous to Jeff he doesn’t want to stop. Not yet. But when he wakes in the morning to an empty bed, he can’t say that he’s not just a little bit relieved. 

 

He tries to ignore what a terrible person that makes him. 

 

At least until after coffee.


End file.
